CB and OC I think my choice of single barrel probably also reflects the fact that I am happy with my side buy sides and over and unders. I remember Gough Thomas writing in the British shooting times magazine around the mid 1970s extolling the virtues of mid to best grade single barrel 12s. I think his main points were that you could build a strong well balanced gun that was easily carried and with wild game birds then being in limited supply harvest a reasonable amount of game in a more sporting manner. When I carried my single barrel AYA cosmos roughshooting I also seemed more fascinated with the ammunition I carried for it and would pocket a mixture of 7s for snipe 6s or 5s for pheasant, some old eley maximums for mallard and in a separate pocket some eley Hymax in BBs or 3s for geese ,you can imagine how that turned out,but it was all part of the fun and reflected that I bought my cartridges by the box of 25.
I did have a 16 bore 1957 as new A5 with spare barrel in an Airways case that I bought for 600 about ten years ago which I foolishly traded for less than its worth and the best balanced and sweetest handling gun I have shouldered was a Webley and Scott 16 bore newish at the time but from poor memory not a 700 perhaps a Kinmount ,a 700 by another name, but I dont know if they were even made in 16 bore. The Kinmount was a local Estate house near Dumfries which once hosted the Game Fair ,the County Landowners Assosciation one which only came up to Scotland every few years, It was at Kinmount in the mid ish 1970s and I was to go with my father. A family argument and teenage moodiness saw me forgo the experience but at least my father told me all about it when he came back. He had travelled by coach with some like minded souls and had a whale of a time. Owning a Kinmount Webley night aid the healing.
